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God Wears Many Skins: Sami Myth and Culture in Poems by Jabez Van Cleef
Spirituality
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The Sami, who call themselves "the real people," are nomadic indigenous people of Northern Scandinavia and adjacent areas of Russia. They practice an animistic religion which invests godlike qualities in animals such as the fox and the bear, and in certain features of the landscape. They believe that the sun (male) and the earth (female) mated to make a son, who then found a bride and fathered human beings. The earth and sun share our daily experience of living, as do all plant and animal creatures.
This form of dynamic interdependence has been expressed over time in a wealth of songs and stories told by Sami shamans and wizards. The stories are characterized by great reverence for our natural environment, which can form a strong spiritual foundation for sustainable living. A selection of these stories is now for the first time adapted into modern English verse, written and voiced by Jabez L. Van Cleef.
Jabez L. Van Cleef, who also wrote "All Is Beautiful: The Navajo Creation Story" for Podiobooks.com, has written poetic versions of spiritual texts from all of the world's great religious traditions. His voice in dramatic readings explores the fine distinctions between metered prose and music, by creating a spoken word sound environment that lulls the listener into a state of profound receptivity.
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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 3.0 United States License.
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Chapters
| Title | Description | Date Created |
| Chapter 1 (6.36 MB) | The Son of the Sun comes into the Land of Giants and woos the Blind Giant's Beautiful Daughter. She helps him trick her father in a hand-wrestling match so that he can merit her hand in marriage. | Apr 23, 2007 |
| Chapter 2 (6.23 MB) | The brothers of the Giant's Daughter return from sea and are enraged to find her gone. After a stormy pursuit, they meet with a bad end in a barren place. She gives birth to the first of the real people. | Apr 23, 2007 |
| Chapter 3 (6.35 MB) | How the real people, from a combined sense of respect, bargaining, and expiation, have come to worship the bears; and how the bears have entered into partnership with us by carrying our messages to the Gods. | Apr 23, 2007 |
| Chapter 4 (6.46 MB) | How the real people of many tribes have created ceremonies for hunting, nurturing, killing, and feasting; which have built and strengthened the relationship between us and the bears. | Apr 23, 2007 |
| Chapter 5 (8.7 MB) | The Fox, the Bear and the Mountain Sami meet in a series of instructive transactions. We learn to tread the fine line between heedless trust and opportunity. | Apr 23, 2007 |
| Chapter 6 (5.71 MB) | The story of Kari Woodencoat, which blends features of Cinderella with the perky insouciance of Pippi Longstocking. The desirable outcome is less attributable to magic than to persistence and hard work. | Apr 23, 2007 |
| Chapter 7 (6.52 MB) | The story of how two scrawny children survived being kidnapped by a giant, because they refused to eat the delicacies offered them by his wife. The story of how mosquitoes and other bloodsuckers were lured to the far north by the treacherous blandishments of the spider. | Apr 23, 2007 |
| Chapter 8 (6.23 MB) | Two scary old wives tales about how idle children are kidnapped or possessed by the spirits lurking in the landscape about them. | Apr 23, 2007 |
| Chapter 9 (8.1 MB) | The rivalry between the two ancient drumming and singing wizards, Karkias and Torajas, symbolizing the characteristic values of age and youth; also called the Kalavala, the Finnish national epic. | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 10 (8.47 MB) | The rivalry between the two ancient drumming and singing wizards, Vainamoinen and Youkahainen, who use words and songs as weapons to bewitch and defeat each other; also called the Kalavala, the Finnish national epic. | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 11 (9.54 MB) | Continuation of the rivalry between the two ancient drumming and singing wizards, Vainamoinen and Youkahainen; also called the Kalavala, the Finnish national epic. | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 12 (8.79 MB) | Continuation of the rivalry between the two ancient drumming and singing wizards, Vainamoinen and Youkahainen; also called the Kalavala, the Finnish national epic. | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 13 (9.65 MB) | Continuation and conclusion of the rivalry between the two ancient drumming and singing wizards, Vainamoinen and Youkahainen; and the story of how Ilmarinen, smith of the Gods, tries to make a bride from gold and silver; from the Kalavala, the Finnish national epic. | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 14 (2.76 MB) | The death of the daughter of the son of the Sun. | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 15 (6.75 MB) | Part 1 of an essay by Jabez L. Van Cleef exploring passages in the world’s religions that can form a spiritual basis for sustainable living. | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 16 (5.69 MB) | Part 2 of an essay by Jabez L. Van Cleef exploring passages in the world’s religions that can form a spiritual basis for sustainable living. | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 17 (4.27 MB) | Part 3 of an essay by Jabez L. Van Cleef exploring passages in the world’s religions that can form a spiritual basis for sustainable living. | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 18 (4.96 MB) | Part 4 of an essay by Jabez L. Van Cleef exploring passages in the world’s religions that can form a spiritual basis for sustainable living. | Jun 3, 2007 |